Deeplinks Blog posts about DMCA Rulemaking

Every three years the U.S. Copyright Office considers granting exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s prohibition against circumventing measures that control access to digital copyrighted works. The first hearing in the 2012 DMCA rulemaking proceeding is set for this Friday, May 11, and we thought folks might want to know a bit about how the process works.

Ahead of the Academy Awards this weekend, Chris Dodd, head of the Motion Picture Association of America, would like to assure you that "Hollywood is pro-technology and pro-Internet." But what does that mean? The comments filed at the Copyright Office this month by MPAA and RIAA, together with the Business Software Alliance, the Entertainment Software Association, and other copyright owners' groups, paint a clear picture of these groups' vision for the future of the Internet and digital technologies.

As the initial furor over the 2009 (in fact delayed until 2010) DMCA rulemaking subsides, a number of questions have been raised about the nature and scope of the exemptions. We’ve gotten a lot of inquiries about two cell-phone related exemptions that EFF championed: one to clarify the legality of cell phone "jailbreaking" — software modifications that liberate iPhones and other handsets to run applications from sources other than those approved by the phone maker – and another to renew a 2006 rule exempting cell phone unlocking so handsets can be used with other telecommunications carriers. Both exemptions were granted.

We've heard from many people who have been distressed to learn that their identity is being sought by the US Copyright Group, which purportedly represents various independent filmmakers, for allegedly having downloaded a movie such as "Far Cry" over BitTorrent. These people may want to contact an attorney in their state or Washington D.C. to discuss their individual circumstances and to decide how to proceed. EFF cannot advise each of these defendants, but we have assembled a list of attorneys who are willing to help advise and possibly represent subpoena targets.